A vehicle-borne improvised explosive device detonated prematurely while being prepared in the Surab district of Balochistan, killing eight militants and three civilians nearby, Inter-Services Public Relations said on Wednesday (Geo News).
“The premature detonation during preparation resulted in the confirmed killing of eight terrorists with multiple injured,” ISPR said. The blast set off other explosives stored at the site, which killed three nearby civilians and injured several of the militants.
The three civilian deaths are the part of this account that will need independent scrutiny, and none has been reported. No details of the civilians have been released.
Security forces and Balochistan Police then launched a joint clearance operation, during which ISPR said troops detected militants fleeing the area and killed ten of them. Two soldiers were injured in an exchange of fire. Sanitisation operations were continuing.
That brings the military’s total for the incident and its aftermath to 18 militants killed, alongside three civilians.
The military attributed those killed to the group it calls Fitna al-Hindustan and described as an Indian proxy. The casualty figures, the affiliations attributed to the dead and the account of the sequence are the military’s own; no independent access to the site has been reported.
The incident follows the killing of five militants reported in an intelligence-based operation in Panjgur district a day earlier. ISPR said the counterterrorism campaign under Azm-e-Istehkam, approved by the Federal Apex Committee on the National Action Plan, would continue at full pace.
Violence has risen in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan since 2021. The Centre for Research and Security Studies found the two provinces together accounted for nearly 96 per cent of all violence-related fatalities in the second quarter of 2026 — more than 61 per cent (475 deaths) in KP and 34 per cent (265) in Balochistan.
